Socially Awkward Flirting 101
by IchirukiFan94
Summary: Rukia Kuchiki quite likes her classmate. But he hasn't ever even looked at her. And now he's talking to her. While her classmates are screaming about algebra. So, now would be the time to find a distraction, make an escape, and put ice on her face until her blush finally goes away... Now with a much happier, fluffier ending. 3-shot
1. Chapter 1

Rukia Kuchiki was tired.

Her final year of high school had, so far, been incredibly stressful. Exams, essays, university applications, university interviews, the academic side of the last just four months had been pure chaos.

The familial side had been harder. Her older sister had gotten ill this time last year, and died six months ago. Her brother-in-law had been supportive in his own way, but he was withdrawn at the best of times, and now he'd lost his wife… he hadn't even looked at her. But Rukia understood, completely. She saw her sister every day in the mirror. He just needed time. He still asked after her studies, questioned when she stayed in on a weekend to revise instead of seeing her friends. It was getting better.

And then, as if to make life just a tiny little bit more frustrating, _boys_. Or a boy. Just one. He hadn't said a word to her once in the ten years they'd been in the same class, he'd maybe caught her eyes maybe two or three times, but that was it. It wasn't _obsessive_ or anything. She just liked him. He was scowling and moody, but still, from what she knew, incredibly kind and loyal, knew Shakespeare like nobody's business, played in three sports teams, was tall and distractingly cute. She just wasn't his only admirer. And she was shy. So she didn't really stand a chance with a guy like Ichigo Kurosaki; she just got to sit and watch the prettiest girl in her year put her hand on his shoulder and giggle while he looked at her with his _eyes_.

She was just so _tired_.

And then one day, it all got a little different.

The day before she'd gotten a _really fucking good_ score on an English practice test. She and a couple of her friends, Momo, Rangiku and Nel, had gone out for dinner to celebrate, as they'd also nailed their tests, and Rangiku had, predictably, snuck a couple of bottles of booze between her incredible _assets_. After only a couple of drinks – her brother would skin her if he thought she was drinking underage – Rukia had found herself in a hair salon, and a chin length, choppy bob framing her face.

The next morning, a Friday, found her a little hungover, downing fresh orange juice with a couple of paracetamol, but a compliment from her brother: that her new hair was 'very becoming'. She had a little smile on her face that stuck around until the very last period of school, when her mathematics teacher handed her back her algebra practice paper – 98%. Her teacher announced it to the class, and, all of a sudden, Rukia massively regretted cutting her hair as she'd lost something to hide the fuck behind when her cheeks went bright red.

When the class was finally let go, Orihime Inoue, her not-crush-just-acknowledged-good-looking-classmate's girlfriend, picked up her 87% and flounced out of the classroom with her hair flowing like a veil behind her, stopping for a second to place her hand on her boyfriend's shoulder, smiling at him, and saying goodbye.

Rukia found herself leaning against the teacher's desk by the classroom door, checking her social media, the rest of the students gone except for her three best friends, crowded around her desk, desperately trying to understand how she'd managed to work out the last question of her paper. Their arguing had reached eardrum splitting level when Rukia heard a considerably softer voice to her right.

"Nice hair."

She turned her head towards him, slowly, in a little bit of disbelief, and said, so eloquently, "… what?"

Then, like the absolute _nerd_ she was, she _actually_ turned to look around herself, because she was sure one of her friends must have stood up and Ichigo Kurosaki had actually complimented them and not her, but they were still sat yelling about simultaneous equations, and he had actually, of his own volition, said something to her.

He looked a little taken aback and confused, and his cheeks got a little red, but he tried again, bless his poor soul. He pointed vaguely to her hair, and then his hair, and said, "you, uh, got your hair cut. It looks… nice."

Rukia, meanwhile, went a lot more red, and looked away awkwardly, towards her friends in case one of them wanted to save her from making a dick of herself, but now they were half ripping apart a text book over whether to multiply or divide first in the equation. So, she said, "thanks", and then she stayed quiet. Like an idiot. And looked at the floor. Like a really big idiot.

"So, uh… have any plans for your weekend?"

She looked up at him again, eyes round and cheeks even redder. "… Yes?" she answered, like a question, and then mentally punched herself in the fucking face.

He raised his eyebrows and went a little more red himself, cleared his throat, and kept fucking going like a trooper. "Anything fun?"

She mumbled something, and she was pretty sure he picked up the words 'friends', 'revising' and 'movie night', but who really knew.

Then she found her vocal chords, because of fucking course she did, and caught his eye.

"I guess you'll be hanging out with Orihime, right?"

He looked so confused and then he frowned at her. "I don't know, maybe?"

"Well, you spend a lot of time with her and talking with her so…"

"Well, she's actually looked at me more than twice in the last ten years and tries to talk to me."

And then she went _really_ red, and her chest got _really_ tight, and felt like the shyest, stupidest human being on the planet and a lump got caught in her throat and she looked away and hoped the ground would swallow her up or her friends would stop arguing over what fourteen to the power of four was.

And it was ridiculous, because Rukia Kuchiki was not actually, in any other situation, _shy_ , and to suggest it at any other time would have you laughing because she was so confident and well-spoken and opinionated that she wasn't fucking _shy_.

But she tried to swallow that bastard lump in her throat, and said, quietly and little hopelessly, because she really liked him and she didn't even really know what else to say: "sorry".

Then she looked up at him, and felt even more like a fucking idiot because he'd been fucking _teasing_ her and his little, cute half-smile that she'd never seen before faded right off his face.

Then Rangiku stood up, threw her 500-page textbook on the floor, and started yelling profanities about Pythagoras, how small his genitalia must have been and how frustrated his wife must have been, and then looked over to Rukia, and saw her face, and went silent.

Then her eyes narrowed. "What the fuck did you do, Kurosaki?"

He raised his hands in surrender and raised his eyebrows. "I was just talking to her-"

"Then why does she look so upset, you dick?!"

They started arguing about how terrifying Ichigo's face was, because no one else turned into lumps of flubber when talking to him. That was when Rukia slipped out, abandoning her bag and dignity for a couple days.

Saturday saw Rukia working on more university applications, and staring at her chemistry homework until it began to make some sense.

Sunday morning, however, saw Rukia sat at their usual square, white-paint-chipped table, waiting for her friends to join her for their weekly breakfast ritual, which usually involved them tutoring each other and talking about boys, the latter subject she usually liked to keep quiet on. The café was cute, black and white tiled floor, matte grey walls, shabby chic chandeliers and lamps scattered on side tables.

It was now a nearly quarter past ten, and the other girls were later than usual. She was about to ring them and find out what was keeping them, when a chair at her table pulled back, and Ichigo Kurosaki sat down to her right.

She stared at him with huge, violet eyes, her phone motionless in her hands.

"Sorry I'm late, a guy whistled at my little sister so she broke his arm and I had to get her out of trouble," he flashed a slight smirk at her while he put his jacket around the back of his chair, and shook his cloth napkin out and pulled it across his lap. "How are you?"

"Erm… fine…" she mumbled, and he kept his smirk on his smug face while he flagged a waitress down.

"Do you know what you want to drink?"

"… Breakfast tea. Please."

He ordered two, the waitress unable to keep a smile off her face at the attention he was giving her, considering the little smile on _his_ face, then picked up his menu. "So, what's good here?"

Words failed her, and she did an odd shrug and head shake combo, feeling extremely foolish sat next to him in black ¾ length yoga pants and her purple Adidas trainers, a white hoodie and bedhead hair, while he dressed a little like a model, in expensive looking dark-wash jeans, a white shirt rolled up neatly to his elbows, and a black leather jacket now on the back of his chair. Seeing him in real-life clothes was even more disarming than usual. She picked up her own menu to hide a little behind it.

"You know, when I usually hear you, you're pretty vocal."

Her eyes looked up again, her face in a permanent state of blushing that she wasn't sure if there was any point in hiding at this point, just in time to see him slip on a pair of narrow reading glasses and quirk an eyebrow at her.

"What… sorry?" she was getting frustrated at herself now for being unable to form a full sentence.

"Well, I've been in the same class as you for a pretty long time now, and even though we've never actually talked, I have _heard_ you. I'm not deaf. You usually seem pretty opinionated. Chatty, even." He looked back down at the menu. "Hey, is the bacon and French toast pretty good here?"

She took a deep breath, and replied with a quiet, "I guess."

They were quiet for a few moments.

"So I guess you don't like me much then?"

Her blush faded a little bit as her head jerked up and she frowned at him, and managed to make an actual coherent comment. "What do you mean?"

"Uh, well, I kinda figured you just didn't like me, but then I thought I'd say something anyway just in case, and then your friend Rangiku said she was pretty sure you liked me, but…" He flipped his menu around. He cleared his throat a little, and he blushed a little. "You can just tell me to leave, you know."

The waitress arrived to put their individual teapots and teacups down on their table just as Rukia figured out that she was, actually, completely stupid as she suspected, and realised that _he_ was as shy as her, and that her being shy when she was usually one of the louder ones in their class, whereas he rarely spoke unless forced, was making her look like she hated him.

Because Ichigo Kurosaki didn't speak to just anybody unless necessary, she knew this about him, and he was sat there looking between the waitress, who had just asked if they were ready to order, and Rukia, who he was clearly waiting on to decide if she could stand him for longer than ten minutes. And she was just staring at him as her brain imploded with new information and thinking he was pretty cute when he was bashful.

And just as he had obviously given up – and she could tell by the look on his face as it turned back into his trademark moody scowl – she pulled herself together.

"The pancakes here are really good," she told him quietly, then looking at the waitress, who nodded and wrote it down. "I think you'd like them with the fried chicken, maybe?" she said, looking him straight in the eye properly for the first time.

He blinked at her like she'd grown another head, and then looked up to the waitress. "Yeah, that sounds good, thanks." But he was still scowling.

She was restless and embarrassed, and still a little confused as to why exactly she made _him_ shy, so she poured her tea, and watched him follow suit out the corner of her eye, took a sip, and then fiddled with her teacup.

"I thought you hadn't ever even noticed me." She wondered briefly if, if one blushed for long enough, it would be stuck forever. She kept her eyes to her cup, but she could feel him looking at her.

"I've noticed you. We've been in the same class for a decade, Rukia," he said slowly, like she was a little dumb. She was. And he'd just said her name to her for the first time.

It got a little less awkward. They talked about school, and he side-lined the conversation when she brought up Orihime again. They talked about family, and he'd known about her sister. One of his younger sisters and he had dropped off flowers and a basket of muffins soon after, but she hadn't been up to receiving visitors, so she hadn't known. They talked about his sports teams, and he knew she'd been studying traditional dance, though she had no idea how he'd discovered that.

They'd both cleared their plates, and he'd shook off his scowl again. She'd even, miraculously, managed to get a couple of true smiles out of him.

He was still wearing a little one when he insisted on paying the bill, and commented, a little quietly, "so would you be up for another date?"

And then she fucked up again, as she was prone to do when confronted with this man.

"Th-this was a date?"

His face dropped again. And then his face changed again, and she didn't think she'd seen a human being look so uncomfortable in her life. He leaned back in his chair, taking his forearms off the table, and cleared his throat.

"But… you have a girlfriend."

He looked up at her and started to talk, but she cut him off, because _now_ she could talk perfectly easily. "She's beautiful and tall and smart and confident and nice… why would you want to… with me?" Now she was scowling.

"I don't like Orihime like that."

"She likes you."

"Yeah, I know, but I like you." It clicked a little later that there was no way he'd meant to say that so bluntly, but she was frustrating him, and he was trying to make it clear to her.

Unfortunately, Rukia appeared to have lost all social skills for the moment. "But why?"

He looked a little angry now, actually. "What do you mean, _why_?" He was incredulous.

"Well, I'm nothing like her-"

"I'm _aware_ -"

"- so why the hell would you like me-"

"Well I like you a lot more when you're not being so fucking ridiculous, and actually talk and be yourself-"

"-Oh, so now I'm being _ridiculous_ am I-"

"Yes, you are, you infuriating little midget-"

"How _dare you_ make fun of my height!"

"I'm telling you I like you and you're just asking _why_ for fuck's sake-"

"Of course I'm asking why, you're you and I'm me-"

" _Yes_ , and _I_ like _you_ , so will you just shut up because your opinions are rejected!" He sighed angrily. "Now finish your tea, for god's sake."

She huffed herself, and spat "well, I like you too!", and drank her tea.

He glared at her.

She blushed and tried to glare back.

* * *

"Yo."

She looked up from her desk, the coffee she was drinking from her favourite Chappy flask to try and wake herself up on the early, cold Monday morning poised between her mouth and the surface.

He smirked at her, reached out, and tugged the strand of hair between her eyes. "Nice hair."

She blushed, looked down, then looked back up to his eyes. "Thanks. Shame about your tangerine nightmare, huh?"

He said the same thing to her five years to the day later, after her brother had lifted up her veil and given Ichigo her hand.

* * *

This might seem ooc for Ichigo, but my rationale was that, on a normal day, if Ichigo and Rukia met and she felt as shit about herself as she did at the opening of bleach, and Ichigo had been as… attentive as he is throughout the manga, she'd have been a gaping fish, especially considering how good looking he turns out according to Riruka.

On another note: the fandom wars are starting to piss me off. If so many people read IR from Bleach independently, and then a chunk of people read IH, then the context for both therefore must be there. Neither group have grabbed their pairing from thin air, though different perspectives make you see different pairings. It's really frustrating that people from different fandoms are arguing when we should all be mad at Kubo for purposely baiting people, and regardless of fandoms, we're left without knowing if Urahara, Yoruichi and Isshin are even alive, and there's a shit ton more characters (Grimmjow, Nel, etc) also unaccounted for, which just shows how ridiculously shoddy the whole thing is. _There's a reason some people are shipping IR and some people are shipping IH and both think the manga warrants their pairing, so either Kubo is an idiot who doesn't understand how subtext works or he's a money-grubbing douchebag, but whatever Kubo is, neither fandom is necessarily wrong if they both show their own evidence. This is Kubo's fault._ That Mayuri-cosplaying asshole.


	2. Chapter 2

This is straight up pure fluff. And a lot of it.

And you know what, Bleach and Ichiruki fandom? You deserve it after this week when it turned out the author we trusted thought it was appropriate to exploit the death of a young fan several years ago on Twitter to justify his shit ending and make money. Like the mangaka version of Donald Trump.

You have all the fucking fluff you want. Dunk your head in a cotton candy machine if you want. Cuddle kittens. Binge watch Yuri on Ice. Fuck this Kubo shit. Have some good fluff, coordinate your Christmas tree baubles so they're purple and orange and laugh at Kubo. He deserves it.

... Should this go up to M? This might have to go up to M.

* * *

Rukia Kuchiki was the cutest girl Ichigo Kurosaki had ever seen.

And he'd felt that way about her since he saw her for the first time ten years ago when she moved to his class, when they were only seven years old. Back then, he thought she was like a princess, and she wouldn't want to play with him because everybody told him he was naughty because of his hair, and he didn't really want to talk to anyone anyway since his mother died. But her mother and father had died too, and she didn't smile too much or want to play with the other children, and if she didn't want to play with them, she certainly wouldn't want to play with him. But a few months later, the princess smiled for the first time when Rangiku Matsumoto gave Rukia the slices of cucumber from her lunch, and Ichigo felt like smiling too.

When he was ten, he still didn't say anything to her, even though he thought her rabbit drawings in art class were as bad as everyone else said, he wanted to tell her he thought they were good just to see her smile. But her friend Nel had wandered over and told her instead, and now they were drawing pictures of cats and bunnies together, and it would have been weird to approach her. So he didn't.

When he was thirteen, a week or two from fourteen, he accidentally saw her in dance class. He thought simultaneously that she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen, but also his hormones were going haywire and she was starting to get an ass that just wouldn't quit, and he would get a boner that just wouldn't quit when he looked at her, and now he had to stop staring at the back of her head in class to stop him embarrassing himself badly. He didn't deserve her anyway. He was an asshole and she was like the only light in a dark room.

When he was fifteen, they finally caught and charged the guy who killed his mother. Ichigo felt a weight lifting off his shoulders, as he realised it wasn't his fault after all. He went to the trial in the morning, and felt so light afterwards that he was determined to ask her out when he returned to school in the afternoon. But his friend Renji had been checking her out too, and had asked her on a date that very morning. She'd said she wasn't looking for a boyfriend at the moment, thanks. So Ichigo's balloon popped, and he sighed, and went back to catching up on the work he'd missed that morning and trying to ignore the pangs in his chest, and that she was currently licking Nutella off her fingers from her lunch and hadn't even looked at him for about five years.

When he was seventeen, he found he didn't really give a shit anymore, and this had been building up since the school year began four months ago, and he'd turned Orihime down for the second time, but if she could approach him, and he knew how unapproachable he was, then he could damn well go up to Rukia Kuchiki and say the short question of, "will you go on a date with me?" Eight little words. No big deal. If not now, then surely never. Just her big, violet eyes staring at him and judging the shit out of him and making him feel embarrassment he would still feel when he was 86. Whatever.

He'd just worked up the nerve one morning, downing coffee at an alarming rate and giving off a murderous aura that made even his father go quiet at the breakfast table, when he arrived at school to see -

She'd cut her hair.

And the plan to ask her at lunch went out the fuckin' window because now he was sat 4 seats behind her and one to the left and he had a perfect view of a creamy smooth neck he just wanted to cover in hickeys so no one else would even go near her, which was a ridiculous notion. Completely unwarranted and caveman and just showed why he shouldn't get to have her.

So he had given up, again, maybe for good this time, because she was just so out of his league, in looks and intelligence and personality and grace, when he was walking back past his classroom from his locker that afternoon to hear obnoxious yelling-

And there she was, leaning against the teacher's desk by the door, a tiny smile on her face as she looked up from her phone every few seconds to quietly laugh at her friends arguing over some maths problem, and he just couldn't help himself anymore. She was out of his league and he didn't deserve her, but he wondered if maybe he could have her anyway. Maybe if she thought he was good enough and he could work up the nerve to talk to her.

So he complimented her hair. And she looked at him like he was an idiot. And said "what?".

... What did she mean, 'what'? What the fuck had he said? He thought he'd said 'nice hair', but what if he'd said 'nice ass' or something instead?!

So he tried to explain a little better, that he'd noticed she'd gotten her hair cut and it looked... nice. And then she said thanks. And then she'd ignored him. So he'd tried to make small talk, because he was so fucking good at small talk. And she'd mumbled and looked over at her friends and generally looked like she wanted to be anywhere but talking to him, and he got it, he really did, he knew he wasn't interesting or funny or worth talking to, but he couldn't quite find it in himself to stop until she told him to just leave her alone.

Then suddenly she mentioned Orihime, for reasons that were not beyond him but he wished she hadn't thought anyways, but he wanted to maybe make her smile a little, even though he knew he wasn't funny, so he teased her in the hope she'd look up at him and laugh a little, but instead she apologised like she just wanted him to leave her alone. And he could feel his face drop and he couldn't really stop it, because he thought, from what he'd known of her, she'd jibe back and say something like, 'well, you don't talk to me either you prick' or just anything that he could have made a conversation from, but she just said, "sorry" and looked a little like she was going to cry because he seemed to have offended her.

And then Rangiku Matsumoto started yelling at him, and Nelliel Tu had made a couple sly comments, and that Momo girl attempted to keep the peace, and about two minutes later he looked around to see if there was any way in hell he could coax Rukia to save him, but she was gone.

"Why were you even talking to her anyway? I've never seen you talk to her in your life," Rangiku snorted.

Image be damned at this point, he'd been pretty brutally rejected about three minutes ago, and she'd probably tell her best friends later that an absolute creep had been a douche to her so he may as well just be honest. "I've never had the balls to talk to her."

"And she's never had the balls to try and talk to you either," Nel said quietly, before groaning and slamming her phone face down on the table she was sat on. "I swear to _God_ , if Grimmjow sends me another dick pic I'm gonna cut the fucking thing off-"

He'd turned to leave, when all three girls stopped him and told him their honest opinions - that they thought she liked him. Well, Rangiku's exact words were, "she wants to get all up in your business, and I need you to because she's so uptight about university applications she needs to fucking relax", and Nel had nodded enthusiastically and said, "I think she wants you to hit that," and then Momo had actually helped and said, "I think she has a crush on you, and by the way we meet for brunch on a Sunday", and suddenly he had an impromptu date.

Saturday saw Ichigo a bundled bag of nerves, his sister Yuzu concerned to the point of bringing him a box of chocolate, his other sister Karin saying he looked constipated, and his father being unusually quiet and somber. Ichigo suspected his father was aware he had a date or something to make him so nervous, and had taken the initiative not to freak him out over it. He'd been saying to his son for the last five years that he should go out and find someone he liked, and he'd just shook it off and said 'whatever'. Ichigo wasn't good at hiding he was lonely around his family. He also wasn't particularly good at hiding his low self-esteem, but that wasn't for his father to help figure out.

Sunday morning finally arrived, and Ichigo's pondering and over-analysing of what outfit he should wear was thankfully interrupted by a call from the local police department. Karin had broken another guy's arm or something for catcalling her, and he was going to have to go bail her out after he called his father's friend Shunsui, head of the local police department and friendly drunk, to make sure she got off scott-free.

All this meant that he arrived to brunch with Rukia about fifteen minutes late, and had to try and ignore how closely her yoga pants clung to her legs or how sexy her messy, silky hair looked.

He pulled out the chair to her right, and her head flashed up, her face set into a look of irritation, obviously about to berate her late friends, when she realised who he was. Her face went blank, her eyes big, and her phone paused in mid air with her two thumbs poised over the screen. Not a particularly encouraging sign, but if this was his last chance, it wasn't the worst thing she could have done.

She hadn't told him to fuck off and stormed for the door, for instance.

"Sorry I'm late, a guy whistled at my little sister so she broke his arm and I had to get her out of trouble," he smiled tightly as he took off his jacket and put it on the back of his chair in one swift movement so he could look back at her, extremely aware that when they had spoken on Friday and he'd tried to be vaguely funny it had not gone down well. She didn't respond at all this time, so he tried a different tact whilst trying to keep his trademark scowl off his face so as not to scare her off. "How are you?"

"Erm... fine..." she replied noncommittally, as he tried to keep his tight smile on even though he probably looked like the Joker at this point and she looked like Snow White with big eyes and dark hair and pink cheeks and red lips. He flagged a waitress down, because she didn't have anything to drink yet even though she must have been sat down alone for a while, and asked her what she wanted.

"Two breakfast teas? Please?" He asked the waitress once Rukia had replied, and the waitress smirked at him, obviously enjoying his discomfort at them so obviously being out on a date, his smile even tighter on his face. He probably just looked demented.

He picked up his menu, and tried the whole conversation thing again. "So, what's good here?"

It failed and she just shrugged, deciding he wasn't worth articulating a reply for, set down her phone at an exact right angle to the table and picked up her own menu.

Maybe commenting on it would be better? he mused. "You know, when I usually hear you, you're pretty vocal," he said, slipping on the reading glasses he hated with a passion. A huge chunk of his time at school was spent making sure no one would see him with them on - he looked like crap enough with the hair without adding the glasses - but it would be worse if it looked like he couldn't read the goddamn menu than if she saw him with them on.

And now she was staring at him in them like he was an alien and suddenly he wished he'd just guessed at something being on the menu instead because now she was just staring at him in glasses and he looked an idiot, he knew.

"What... sorry?"

"Well, I've been in the same class as you for a pretty long time now, and even though we've never actually talked, I have _heard_ you. I'm not deaf. You usually seem pretty opinionated. Chatty even." _Stop rambling, you asshole_. He asked her something about bacon, a direct question, and she still gave a noncommittal answer.

He started to realise this was a bit of a fait accompli and he'd known it before he'd even approached her in their classroom on Friday, but he seemed to have become an utter sucker for punishment, and the potential of her being even slightly interested in him - by which, just not running away from him - was an incredibly alluring prospect and he just couldn't stop until she just told him to stop and he knew it was time for her to tell him to stop.

"So I guess you don't like me much then?"

She looked up at him properly then. "What do you mean?"

"Uh, well, I kinda figured you just didn't like me, but then I thought I'd say something anyway just in case, and then your friend Rangiku said she was pretty sure you liked me, but…" He flipped his menu around, trying to look anywhere but at her, and his face felt like fire he must have been blushing so hard. His word vomit finally stopped, and he knew he had made her incredibly uncomfortable, and as much as he wanted to have a chance with her, he knew he had completely blown it and gave her an out. "You can just tell me to leave, you know."

And then the waitress arrived with their teas, and put them down and asked them what they wanted to order, but she hadn't said anything yet. She was just bright red and looking uncomfortable and Ichigo couldn't help but feel like the worst person in the world for putting her in such a position where she was just staring at him looking horrified - he assumed horrified at the suggestion that she would like him - and he was just about to say to the waitress that he was leaving and it was just her order to take and apologise and pay for her brunch anyway because he'd ruined it and then leave and go home and just...

"The pancakes here are really good," she said, so softly he almost didn't get it, and the waitress jotted it down. She suggested something he would like too, and he couldn't really speak an articulate sentence, so he just nodded and rambled something that meant yes because she'd basically just agreed to have brunch with him- _that still doesn't mean she doesn't think you're disgusting, just that she's polite,_ a fucking annoying voice in head said. She poured her tea, and he copied her.

"I thought you hadn't even noticed me."

 _...What?_

She was hiding a little behind her teacup, her cheeks redder than before.

"I've noticed you. We've been in the same class for a decade, Rukia," he said slowly, getting a little thrill from saying her name but also dumbfounded at the suggestion that she thought he _hadn't noticed her_ when he'd barely been able to take his eyes off her and not notice her.

They chatted, all through brunch, and stunted silences turned into slightly more articulate sentences, which turned into actual conversation, and a couple of comments here and there from her had made him actually smile.

He finally got up the courage from somewhere to ask her out on another date and then- "Th-this was a date?"

He suddenly fidgeted like he was a puppet being jerked on strings, because he'd just been _flirting_ with her, he was sure he had, he was dense but he was pretty sure they'd been flirting, it had definitely felt like flirting, not full sexual innuendos but a definite flirt or two had been exchanged-

"But... you have a girlfriend." And then she started fucking talking about ways in which she perceived Orihime Inoue to be better than she was, and if there's one thing Ichigo could not handle, it was anyone trash talking Rukia Kuchiki, and not even Rukia Kuchiki could trash talk Rukia Kuchiki around him.

And then they started arguing about how he liked her, and why he liked her, and how could he not like her, and could she just shut up and drink her tea for God's sake, because to him she was perfect - not perfect, but perfect to him and for him - and well, she liked him too, she argued back like it was a fantastic retort and then she went very red.

And then they arranged another date, and the next day at school they flirted and bantered, and went on their next date that very night until it snowballed into date nights whenever they could get them.

* * *

Ichigo hasn't realised how embarrassing it could be, having a girlfriend who he was still so shy around because he liked her so much he could barely have a full conversation with her, finding out all the thing about him that he wasn't particularly proud of or was self-conscious about.

(It was also extremely annoying that, once she'd realised that he did, in fact, really fucking like her (like really fucking liked her), other than the odd shy smile when he complimented her she'd been talkative and yelling and perfectly fine with physical contact. It was hard to tell if that was a result of realising that if she was waiting for him to initiate any contact she'd be waiting a very long time so she'd may as well take the initiative, or if she'd genuinely thought he greatly disliked her before now, which he found very hard to believe. He was still worried about initiating any contact, which was stupid but whatever. Tugging on a strand of hair was one thing. Putting a hand on the small of her back, trying to kiss her, or maybe even (and hold on to your socks for this one) holding the inside of her thigh when he was driving was quite another.)

For example, she must have realised pretty quickly how lonely he had been before her. She started to learn his routine, deduced he worked so hard so his teachers didn't think he was a delinquent because of his hair, and had given up vast chunks of his social life as a result. She started to call him at about 9pm every night, at first with just the excuse of a two minute goodnight call (probably worried about coming across as clingy), but he realised was to stop him doing work and talk to someone for a while, until he found himself calling her at half 8 every night and talking to her while she went through her bedtime routine until she drifted off to sleep herself.

She also, if she was truthful about having liked him for so long herself, must have realised the depressive streak Ichigo often had to fight off, and would drag him out of it before it turned into something worse. Around a month after they had first started dating, he'd been quiet all morning, and after lunch when their combined friendship groups had been eating together on the roof, she'd said she'd needed to talk to him in private after everyone else left. His friends had raised their eyebrows at him, obviously suspecting she was about to seduce him, but she hadn't. She'd reached up to him, pulled his head down so his forehead rested on her shoulder, one hand playing with the hair on the nape of his neck while the other rubbed his back. His arms wrapped around her waist, and he buried his face right into the crook of her neck, smelled her sweet scent, and finally relaxed. She'd asked him what his sisters were doing after school, what homework he needed to do, asked him where he was going to take her on their next date, told him she knew this wasn't him - she just knew what to say to him.

Just five minutes of this would have Ichigo back to normal, with even a spring in his step as long as it didn't affect his image too much.

* * *

At Christmastime, he got her into bed.

He'd not been great with being able to touch her for the months they'd been dating, but he was getting better. He wasn't a PDA type of guy, and she was not a PDA type of girl, but even in the private confines of either of their rooms, he wasn't great at it. He was intimidated. She told him he was cute, but she was incredibly out of his league and he knew it. He'd been able to cuddle her for about maybe two weeks, and kissed her on the cheek a week ago, and finally plucked up the courage to actually kiss her lips just yesterday.

And then his dam just fucking broke... so to speak.

She'd just been sat on his bed in baggy work out pants and a baggy work out top and a sports bra and crazy hair and no make up and bare feet and he walked back into his room to see her giggling over some shit they'd been watching on Netflix on his laptop and she had a big smile and she was biting a finger and she was beautiful and sexy and carefree and she looked up at him in the door way, where he was frozen, and her smile faded a little and she asked, "what's the matter?"

And he shook his head and smiled lightly and her big smile broke out again. He lay down next to her, his back half upright, pulled her down to him and kissed her.

And then he snuck his right hand down her pants to grab her ass while his left put his laptop on the desk, and then that hand got grabby too.

She was a little nervous at first, that was clear to him; she was a little red, and blushing, and slyly trying cover herself as she lost more of her clothes, but he was sure, and aside from being a little shy she was certainly not stopping him.

Then all the clothes were off, and he'd gotten her off with his mouth (where he found the confidence to do that he'd never know but god if she could spend the rest of his life sitting on his face he'd be happy) and she'd started to give him a blowjob which he'd had to stop pretty quick in case he finished pretty quick, and then they'd actually been about to start having sex when he'd managed to actually get himself inside her - but whatever a girls virginity was (and he wasn't at all sure, something about a skin barrier?) he broke it and apparently he was a pretty big guy and it seemed to really fucking hurt, and he was stuck between a rock and a hard place for a few minutes while he rubbed her back as she tried really hard not to cry, and he tried really hard not to just start fucking her because she felt better than he'd ever imagined.

But this girl he was in love with (and he was in love with her, of course he was) was pretty fucking strong and intense and awesome, so she'd shook it off, told him to start moving, and when he'd gone too slow, afraid of hurting her more, she'd flipped him on his back and started riding him, and definitely did not get herself off. It was something that would bug Ichigo for the next few months (why the fuck could he not get the love of his life off when they made love, what was wrong with him), but for now she'd been so dedicated to the cause of making sure he finished he was pretty sure he was going to have to ask her to marry him tomorrow because he thought she might actually be in love with him.

(And he learnt how to get her off when they had sex. They had one very intense, educational afternoon a couple of months later where he learnt exactly the spot to hit and exactly what to do with his fingers while they were having sex and he turned out to be really fucking good at it if he did say so himself. She'd obviously thought he was pretty good too and had passed the first round, because she'd started researching on the internet for more advanced positions, and had a pretty incriminating search history from what he could tell when she'd show up in his bedroom and tell him what to start doing.)

And then one afternoon, when they were doing it, and it wasn't some full on, who's going to get off first fight, or her making him wear his glasses and talk dirty, or him trying to make her sweat and sob and froth at the mouth and gush all at once, or her doing something indecent with her tongue and _really_ indecent with her pinkie finger, or him doing something _extremely_ indecent with his dick and a different orifice, or whatever thing they'd thought up to try and get each other off so hard they'd black out (Ichigo had no idea what monster he'd unleashed and he wasn't exactly complaining), when it was just sweet, simple missionary and they were as close as could be and making out and she was quietly moaning and whimpering, and her violet eyes were really dark and heavy lidded, he'd just come straight out and said-

"I love you."

And then she stopped moving, and he stopped moving because she'd stopped, and she just stared at him for a couple of seconds and then she just smiled. This big bright smile. And she pulled him down and kissed him while still smiling, and then pulled away and said, "I love you, too."

And they'd just smiled at each other for a couple more seconds, him feeling a bit like a smiling idiot, before she did that squeezing thing and his breath caught and his smile dropped and he basically had to start moving again.

But she'd said it again afterwards, and then he'd said it again, and then he said he should probably take her out to dinner now, because it wasn't the most romantic thing in the world to say 'I love you' for the first time when they were fucking straight after school, and she'd laughed and said, "yeah, you probably should", so they had. And he'd said it again while they were looking at the moon by the beach after they'd eaten (and again that night when they were back in bed - did Ichigo mention how insatiable this girl was?)

Finally her birthday trotted along, and it was on her birthday that they'd realised they didn't need to worry about their future either - he'd caught sight of the list of universities she was applying to over her shoulder at school, and she'd look at his mildly shocked face before looking at his computer screen too and then lightly snorting to see the exact same list, before telling him, in no uncertain terms, that he'd better make sure he had his act together because she was aiming for the best of the list and if he didn't get in and she had to settle for another she'd be pretty pissed. And so would her brother.

School itself had been pretty different since they'd gotten together - the odd jaunt in a janitor's closet had Ichigo saying maybe school was even fun sometimes.

Maybe it was the lack of worry as well - spending ten years worrying and feeling like shit because the girl you were in love with wasn't even looking at you suddenly turning into that she was in fucking love with you and wanted to banter with you and talk to you and cuddle you and feed you and get you off does a lot for your blood pressure and relaxation.

Even if it's super embarrassing when, on the morning of her birthday, she'd obviously opened the present he'd left the night before - a pair of small diamond studs it had taken months to save up for that actually looked like icicles - and walked straight up to him, wearing the damn things, grabbed his cheeks, and gave him one quick second-long smooch, patted both his cheeks and walked off to the sound of heckling from their classmates while she sniggered.

And he had no comeback because, despite her knowing he loved her, and him having seen her in a complete state of undress and in various poses and states of duress, and spending all their time together, she still made him completely nervous and go bright red.

And it was odd, because he thought he'd want some time apart from her, sometimes. His own space. For her to leave him alone to gather his own thoughts, because he was antisocial and introverted and he didn't thrive well around people for too long, it made him tired. But not with her. She was always there when he wanted her - which was all the time. And she'd said a few times, to tell her to leave him alone for a while if he needed some space, with a little smile and eyes promising there'd be no offence taken. But he could never send her away, and didn't want to either.

So he sat through dinners with her big brother, who had been outright hostile for a while until he quietly thanked Ichigo one evening for making Rukia smile. For encouraging her to do her best and go to the best university she could. For making her happy. The dinners were still a little difficult but no longer torturous, and there was a little more leniency with him being able to sleep over, but he was pretty sure it was supposed to be completely innocent and Rukia was hiding her birth control pills from interested maids.

He had their friendship groups cross over and grow into one big one, and suddenly there was a much bigger group getting brunch every Sunday morning at the shabby chic cafe on the corner, brunches that quickly turned rather rambunctious once Rangiku turned 18 and began ordering mimosas, and then getting Rukia to order mimosas, and then suddenly Ichigo had a slightly tipsy (and usually horny) Rukia to deal with every Sunday afternoon.

And when they moved to university together, and found new traditions with new friends they fit in together then too.

And when they finished university and bought a house and had jobs, they had a good mix of new and old friends to meet with.

And when the babies started coming, the traditions got a little more frustrating and a lot more silly.

And when the grandbabies started coming, because their kids were old enough for _that_ sort of thing now, even though their grandparents were still insatiable too, life still went well, if a little mad.

And when, a hundred years later, they were both Captains in the afterlife, they found each other again after they'd been lost for so long, well...

Then it was just always meant to be.


	3. Chapter 3

The most annoying thing about Rukia's new boyfriend - though the term 'boyfriend' seemed too cliche and small for what they'd immediately developed into, but 'soulmates' seemed a little presumptuous so maybe labels didn't mean that much - was that he had no idea how perfect he was.

And she didn't just mean how he said she was perfect. Cause she got that. She was perfect for him and to him, but she wasn't necessarily a perfect person.

He was. And it was incredibly annoying and frustrating on a daily basis that he had no idea and how other people reacted to him because absolutely everybody else knew how perfect he was and he had such a low opinion of himself that he didn't voice but she could feel that she wanted to punch him in the nose and tell him to wake the fuck up.

On a vain level, he was perfect. He hated his hair, and he may have gotten shit for it in the past before he got all yummy and muscly, but really the hair was the icing on the cake that was his face. It was a good shade for his skin tone, and made his eyes pop something special. It made his jaw look just the right amount of strong without being overbearing, and his perfectly straight and handsome nose was almost cute at times.

And then there were the glasses.

Once she'd gotten him into bed - a task in itself - she'd brought up the glasses later. He'd mentioned when they were dating at the beginning that he didn't like how he looked with them on, but she'd seen his orgasm face by this point so she felt it was safe to bring them up again.

They were sat doing homework together on Thursday evening. Or she was pretending to anyway. Really, she was just shamelessly checking him out, and he was so innocent - despite him shoving his tongue and cock in places and holes that definitely were not innocent, and were actually pretty fucking depraved, and on a regular basis - that he didn't notice. And he was wearing his glasses.

"... you know, you look really cute in those."

He'd blushed, but she hadn't managed to get him to sleep with her. He looked so tired she didn't have the heart to suggest it because he obviously wasn't in the mood so she curled up in bed and he joined her and they slept instead.

The next day was a different story.

Their extremely annoying algebra teacher had made Rukia come to the front of the class to demonstrate on the chalkboard how she'd managed to solve the seriously difficult equation that had her friends staring at her like she was satan incarnate for figuring out, but she wasn't looking at them as she returned to her seat. 4 seats back and one to the left from hers sat Ichigo. Looking at her. In his glasses.

The proverbial floodgates opened, and when the bell for lunch rang twenty minutes later, she said she'd needed to talk to him, and they'd meet up with their friends for food on the roof in a few minutes.

She'd knew she'd been lying when she'd said it, but she hadn't realised to the extent, because she hadn't realised that Ichigo watching her stretch up and write on the board in her tiny school skirt had made him pretty excited too, so when she pulled him into the janitors' closet for a quickie, and she locked the door 12:30pm, she didn't realise that she wouldn't open the door again until 4:30pm after school had finished because he hadn't actually let her leave, and they'd spent four whole hours in a godforsaken closet doing anything they could think would work in such an enclosed space that eventually ended with a bra ripped at the front and both their shirts open and his pants down and her skirt flicked up and her ripped underwear in his pocket and both of them soaked in sweat and him still wearing those fucking glasses when they heard the final bell ring, looking at each other in shock and confusion at where the time had gone.

And then they laughed and she giggled uncontrollably at how uncontrollable they were and they got dressed and snuck out and went home.

Because doing this was another thing Ichigo was frustratingly perfect at, she gave him a little instruction for just one afternoon when he couldn't quite get her off, but it clicked almost immediately and now he was like her own personal Sex God descended from the heavens and it was a complete struggle to keep up with him because he seemed able to go indefinitely once he started.

But the starting had taken a while, the poor clueless boy.

When they'd started dating, it had been casual and relaxed, yes, but she was apparently the one who'd be encouraging them to take it to the next level. Rukia sook advice from her friends, who of course took it upon themselves to help her get her boyfriend into bed.

It had taken a month. Four weeks at the rate of three official dates a week and him seeing her in a school uniform with a much shorter skirt than usual. On their dates, she dressed up - she showed a lot more skin, she wore red lipstick and made her hair sexy and thick, she wore killer heels designed to make him look at them and then keep looking up and up her bare legs-

But he was a poor, clueless gentleman.

So, she figured, he just needed time, and on this particular chilled Friday evening she decided that she'd just wait for him to start making the moves on her instead of encouraging him if he wasn't ready yet. So she didn't do her hair, didn't do her make up and just wore casual sports clothes because her feet ached from 5 inch heels and she didn't want her skin to break out from wearing so much make up so often and her head ached from the weight of the extensions she'd used a couple nights ago and it was winter and freezing and she was sick of feeling close to getting hypothermia when there didn't seem to be any chance of, if she did get hypothermia, her boyfriend making use of the age-old cure of sex to raise body temperature so her jogging bottoms were fleecy and thick and not attractive.

And then, of course, when she had made minimal effort, then he'd stared at her like she was a goddess and then he'd jumped her.

Fucking typical.

But he wasn't typical, and Rukia guessed that was the point in him.

Though her brother apparently disagreed with Rukia when she took her new boyfriend to meet him.

He'd tried, he had, he started off being as polite and modest as he could, but after a while her brother wouldn't stop making digs and remarks, and the dinner had ended when Ichigo had dropped the salad fork he'd been brandishing across the table at Byakuya and walked out.

Men.

* * *

She'll always remember the day Ichigo proposed. Always.

They'd graduated from university about two years ago, and were living together in the cutest little flat in the centre of Tokyo. She was training to be a police officer, because she had the temperament, damn it, and her height would never hold her back. He was doing his medical residency at a local hospital, and had a rare day off to spend with his beautiful girlfriend.

It wasn't a particularly special day. It wasn't a festival, a birthday, a holiday. They'd slept together that morning, gotten up, done some food shopping, gone back to their flat where Isshin, Karin and Yuzu had been waiting, they'd made late lunch, baked a cake, and then their family had gone home again, and they'd gone for a walk in the park.

If Rukia had known that later Ichigo would be proposing, she'd be incredibly surprised. He wasn't nervous. He wasn't shaking, stuttering, blushing, refusing to look at her. If anything he was more confident, sure of himself that usual. He was smirking at her, making jokes, taking the piss out of her. They were relaxed.

So later, when they'd gotten home, he'd opened her favourite bottle of wine, some Italian red or whatever (he knew she only liked it so much because there was a drawing of a rabbit on the label. So predictable), and poured her a glass. They put a terrible movie on tv, curled up together beneath the same blanket, and she'd sipped her wine until the glass was empty and she was dozy.

Then she felt it.

She was sat in his lap, both their left arms resting on the arm rest, her head tucked under his chin, her rest loosely holding her wine glass, and his right on the back of the sofa. She'd been struggling to keep her eyes open, when she felt cool metal slide onto the ring finger of her left hand. She turned her head to look up at him, and he'd looked down at her, a soft little smile on his face. He'd thought a thousand times how to ask her, which words he should say, and he'd finally decided, but he couldn't bring himself to say any of them, because her eyes had already said yes and her smile had gotten big and she was already pulling him down for a kiss.

And so they'd gone to bed and made love, and it had started soft and slow until she'd paused and looked at him and said, "we're getting married", and then Ichigo had smiled and gotten possessive and suddenly was a lot rougher and Jesus how many hickeys were necessary-

And then they cuddled, and she was happy. She was warm, and safe. She was happy.

* * *

About 250 years later, she got him to propose again.

They weren't married anymore, she reasoned. Their vows were, "till death do us part", and they were dead, and they'd been apart for a good long time before they found each other again.

"Besides," she said, "you never actually asked me in the first place, so I deserve a proper proposal. I'm a Captain now you know," she said self-importantly, her button nose up in the air.

He snorted, and looked up from his paperwork at her from where he was sat at his desk, in his own Captain haori in his own Captain's office.

He considered for a moment putting together a Seriously Romantic Affair, with purple roses and her favourite wine and dinner and a massive diamond ring and him on one knee declaring his undying love but last month he'd dislocated his knee in a fight with Ikkaku and, in any case, he didn't need to. He could, but it wasn't them.

He flicked his pen down on the desk, crossed his arms and stared right into her eyes.

"Rukia. Do you want to get married again, you annoying midget?"

"Well yes, now you've asked."

* * *

Sorry if you saw the earlier ending, I saw that ridiculous novel cover and got irratIONALLY ANGRY and kind of started huffing and I went really red and stressed and kept saying shit like, 'I don't believe this bastard' and whatever but I had wine and now I'm okay. But this is the end of this three shot, so I hope you enjoyed!


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